Long time no post......

I get notifications at times from people still reading this blog! I feel like such a slacker for not keeping up my postings as I did. Hoping to start posting again at least once a week.

For now I will give you a little overview of my current life.

I am still in the Adams State University Masters in Clinical Mental Health counseling program. I have 10 weeks...yes you read that right 10 week until I am DONE!!!! On March 8th I go and sit for my CPCE exam which is required in order to complete my program. I am busy studying for that on top of taking care of my new baby :). We decided to add to our family and baby T was born November 23rd @ 37 weeks on the nose weighing 6lbs 1oz via natural childbirth thanks to a 3.5 hour labor from start to finish!

I hope to start posting more as I have a lot of things to post just not enough time to post them all....

IF you have any questions please feel free to post them and I will do my best to answer them.

A

Parenting Guilt

I have been at my counseling agency site a few weeks now. Today I was able to sit in with another therapist on a session. It just so happened this this particular client was dealing with some issues around parenting guilt. My head wheels started turning.

You see the last few weeks I have been struggling with the mommy guilt that goes along with starting to work long hours a few days per week. My sister in law and at times my sister is picking up my son from school 2 days per week lately and like this evening I didn't get him till 6:15pm. G goes to bed at 7:30 but we start the process at 7pm. So I had a whole 1 hour and 15 minutes with my son before he went to bed and I feel horrible for this. To hear this little guy say I missed you today mommy all because he got a few hours less with me today than normal breaks my heart.

As I sat in on the session today I heard similar thoughts coming from this client that I have had myself. As a therapist in training as this client was talking I jotted down some notes (I wasn't the therapist in this session) notes such as:

Perception of failure as a parent
Deal with own expectations
Parental influence on current relationship with children
Self preservation mode

As I sat listening it made me realize that I to have these issues. I to need to deal with my own expectations of what I consider a "good" mother is. I need to deal with my own perception of being a failure as a parent because I need help with my son. It made me realize that I can truly relate on a deep personal level with some clients. I also had a light bulb moment when I thought about how the majority of parents have some level of this guilt. Don't you? We all as parents feel guilty for some form of something that we have ever done/said/or will do as parents. So how do we deal with this guilt?

I believe it starts with understanding where the guilt comes from. I mean at the very core of your being where does it come from? There is something ingrained in you (and me!) that says that needing help with parenting for example some equates to being a less than perfect mother. Or that needing a break from our children means the same. So start there. Stop and ask yourself why you feel guilty and where that thought comes from. I know this is where I am starting. I will update once I begin to process.

Your past will control you if you let it....

We all have the friends (or maybe you are the one!) who say repeatedly how X happened to them as a child/teen/adult and so they think that today they do Y because of it. In fact I used to be one of those people. I used to allow my past to control my future (and in some ways I am still). It was easy to do much easier than admitting that I was giving control to something and someone that wasn't me. It is far easier to blame someone else for what is wrong than to look at yourself in the mirror and point the finger right at you. I don't discount the impact that past wrong doings can have on you....some of them can literally bring you to your knees. They are real. They happened. They left a mark. At some point though we all get to a place to where we have two roads we can go down one with the past hanging around our necks by a chain and the other where we take off the chain and walk freely without so much weight.

I had an instructor who once asked me what going back and having someone from my past say they were sorry for doing X would do for me and you know what I honestly couldn't answer. I had spent so much time and energy into thinking about how wrong that person was and how wrong it was that they did X to me that I hadn't given two thoughts to what it would mean to let it go. I clung to it. I shaped my life around it. I acted in ways that I shouldn't have because of it. I excused my behavior because I blamed it on (insert name here). What would it mean to you if you heard I am sorry from someone in your past? Do you really believe that hearing that would change everything for you?

 I  have to be a realist here and tell you that it most likely won't. You might get some small sense of relief by hearing it but it won't bring to you the peace you think it will. What will bring you that peace is accepting that it happened, that the person might have been wrong and then allowing yourself to move on knowing that humans are prone to mistakes sometimes HUGE mistakes. It doesn't mean you think what they did was right, it most likely wasn't, but what it does mean is that you are taking back to power of controlling your own life.

Forgiving your past is hard. Trust me I know I am still in the process of doing it but once you start chipping away at all those past hurts it really does free you. You begin to see what you have been missing out on and in some cases the hurt that you have caused others because of it. I have said many times on this blog...you control you even if you don't want to admit that, you are the only person who has any control over you. Not your past :)

What am I up to?

As you know by now my practicum has now begun. I have been at my site a few weeks now (both of them!) and just yesterday I got to become involved in what I really want to be involved in: addiction treatment. Some time in the near future I will be leading a teen recovery group and will begin working one-one with other addicted people who are both beginning rehab and who are already well into their recovery. I am excited. Super duper mega excited but nervous at the same time. I am grateful that my practicum site apparently sees in me what I believe in myself and is giving me this amazing opportunity to grow further in my work with addicted clients and the opportunity to learn from those at my site who have years of experience on me.

My courses have officially begun as well and so far they are looking pretty good! This semester I am taking a Cognitive behavior therapy course, group counseling and my practicum of course. It was nice to log into my courses and see familiar "faces". Part of our practicum is using a live interactive web based program and interacting with each other on a weekly basis at a set time to discuss our practicum experience and learn from each other in different areas.

So far so good and I can't wait to get in there and get busy!

Choice In Addiction

The other day I was taking part of a chemical dependency group at my practicum/internship site. The facilitator decided to show a video of what addiction does to your body and your brain for the 5 group goers. In this video it showed how addiction works in the brain and also talked about what it can do to your body mainly major organs etc. As I sat watching this video they talked about the disease model and it stated "it is not a choice". I immediately wrote down in my journal (which I have started for my practicum/internship).....Is there no choice in addiction? What are the consequences of believing that way?

Now I have talked many times before about how once someone is addicted there comes a point in time where I believe the addiction chooses for them. They continue using because biologically they must in order to avoid the nasty withdrawal that most addicts fear and sometimes they continue to use to avoid actually dealing with whatever they are self medicating be it emotions, thoughts, whatever. But does that mean that addiction and recovering from addiction has no choice whatsoever in it? I am honestly not so sure. If you take away the ability to choose do you take away the ability of the person? Maybe it is safer to say that you have no choice in addiction but you have the power of choice in recovery? That is how I am leaning.


                                                      

To me it looks like this...when you are addicted the drug of choice makes the choice for you however once you have detoxed you then have the power of choice back and you are responsible for your own recovery. Only you can change you. Of course you need support along the way but ultimately your recovery is yours and it becomes your choice how you live out your recovery. I believe that recovering addicts have to take back the choice and control over themselves in order to be successful in their recovery. So yes in some ways you have choice in addiction because you have choice over your recovery which is part of your addiction.

Infant loss and grief work

I honestly can't remember if I have shared this part of my personal life on this blog yet. If I have forgive me and if I haven't well keep reading! I met with a few girls who will be interns with me at the counseling agency for lunch today and tried to chat about our interest. While it didn't get far there I have been thinking about it all afternoon. Oh and forgive my lack of images for this post as none seem appropriate.

 I have a variety of interest but I do believe my main pull is to substance abuse although I am also drawn to working with soldiers who have PTSD issues, couples (not families), and I am considering infant grief work. This is where the personal part comes in.

In 2005 my husband and I lost a son at 23 weeks gestation due to pre-term labor. He lived a brief time after he was born but died I believe mostly because of the location we where in not being properly equipped to handle a 23 week infant.  I have spent the last 7 years working through the grief of loosing Zachariah (named after the book Z is for Zachariah) and I have always wondered if as a counselor I could offer something to parents who have been or are on the same path as I.

It was and is one of the hardest things I have had to deal with in my life. I say is because there are times it hits me harder than others. I have accepted that I can't change the past and wondering the whys and hows does me no good as it takes me a place that I don't need to be. I have accepted his death in the only way I can that still allows me to live my life. The only way that allows me to move forward while still knowing something is missing in my life.

Losing a child is one of the hardest things any family may have to face. You have to give up on the hopes and dreams you had for them, on wondering what they would look like now, what kind of person they would be, who would their friends be, if they would get along with their siblings...would you even have siblings if they had been alive. You see where I am going with this? Losing a child leaves so many things unanswered....so many it can be unbearable.

So as a parent who has been there and a future counselor I wonder if I can give back and offer a glimmer of hope in the dark. But I also wonder if because of my past experience I would be to close? I really can't decide.

Oh and for anyone who is reading this post who has recently experienced an infant loss in your family here is some things to NOT SAY to the parents:

• Don't say it was God's will or say the baby is better off because they are with God unless the person you are speaking with is extremely religious. Most of us myself included are not comforted by that...at least not while the pain is so raw.
• Don't try to act like it didn't happen or that the baby was not well a baby. No matter what stage of the pregnancy to those parents that was their child. 
• Don't try to avoid talking about how hurt the parents are because when you do you make the parents feel like they need to be strong to save your feelings and in that moment they should feel free to turn to you with theirs. 
• Don't avoid talking about the baby. This might be different for some but I wanted to talk about Zach. I wanted him to be acknowledged as to me it helped me see that he was gone and to begin the process of healing.
• Don't offer to remove the babies thing from the house or to take down the nursery they had set up for the baby. When the time is right for the parents that will happen and removing traces of the baby doesn't do anyone any good and for the most part makes the parents feel as you want to pretend their child never existed. 
• Lastly, don't change the subject. If the parent starts to talk to you about losing their child don't try to get them to talk about something else. If they choose you to talk about it with it means that they feel like they can trust you with their true emotions and that they feel like you are there for them. If you don't know what to say just say this: I will sit here as long as you need me to listen but because I lack experience I will not know what to say. But my ears and heart will be open. 

If you are a parent who has recently lost a child:

• Speak up about what you need. Everyone around you really needs direction as most people do not know how to handle these emotions and feelings. Don't be afraid to ask for what you need. 
• Seek out a grief counselor
• Seek out a grief support group (we did this and it was really good for us)
•  Turn to and not away from your partner. Remember they are the only other person in your life right now who truly will experience the loss most similar to the way you will. At times it will seem like they don't get it but trust me they do. 

If anyone reading this post wants to contact me leave me a message. I would be glad to speak with anyone. 

Not one but two.....and the dance of therapy

So after moving here in May and spending months searching for an internship only to land one then decide it wasn't going to offer everything I needed or wanted and then start searching for another only to land that one is awesome! Yes you are reading that right I have not one but two internship sites now! I start the 2nd site next week by becoming involved in a process therapy group. Excited. Nervous. Stoked. Unsure.

You see while you are in school and before you starting doing your "real" experience courses unless you have been previously involved in therapy in some way it sounds magical. Magical in the sense that what you read or hear from others sounds like a magical process in which two people dance together so seamlessly you can hardly tell there are two dancing. Therapy is a dance. But I don't believe it is seamless at least not in the beginning.  It takes time to learn each others moves and begin to step together at the right time.

So I am nervous but excited to begin this journey. I am ready. I am ready. I am ready (maybe if I repeat enough it will do something to the nerves?).

Love 'em enough to let them have their pain

I was completing a discussion post within my group for my multicultural course and another student (Larry!) made this statement which got me thinking. As counselors is there a time where we have to love our clients enough to let them have their pain? As a future counselor I want to take away pain or at least that is what I thought I should do but this statement...loving them enough to let them have their pain really made me take a step back and understand just how important it really is. Sometimes we need to sit with the pain, to really feel it if we are to make an effort to create change. Without the pain we might not ever step in the direction of the goals we have created for ourselves.So counselors and future counselors....sometimes you have to do as Larry says and love 'em enough to let them have their pain.

Grad school burnout.....

 


Yep I have it. I have realized why many people do not choose  to seek a graduate degree. I am 3 semesters into my program with 4 to go and I am burned out. I am not sure what is causing the burnout. Is it just school? Boredom with my classes? Lack of learning? Family issues? Life issues? What is the cause and what am I going to do about it. Taking a break in my program is not an option nor is quitting. So what do I do?

Well today I decided to just be and read some funny therapy comics to which I am going to share with you of course!

Enjoy :)
Source 1, 2, 3,4, 5

YES YES YES!!!!!!

After months of searching MONTHS I tell you today I got an internship offer. I have been looking since May. Yes May. I have called at least over 50 sites. Some where not taking interns at all, some were not taking interns till next fall ( my practicum starts in January), some just were not interested in me. But you know what I learned today? It was ALL for GOOD REASON. Because today I landed hopefully what will turn out to be my dream internship.

If you have been following this blog you are well aware that I have interest in addiction, sex offender treatment, and prisoner counseling. This internship will allow me to be involved on some level with all of the above hence my excitement at landing what to me is the perfect internship. I am looking forward to beginning my work with this agency!

Hopefully in the coming months I will have more to talk about :)

Is it possible to be too passionate?

Is it possible to be too passionate? This morning after I dropped my little guy off at school I decided to come home and spend an hour just doing something for me. So I decided to lay in bed and watch TV. On Netflix I found a show called For The Bible Tells Me So which is about being gay/lesbian and how  Christians use the bible as justification for their hatred of gays (if you are one of the few Christians who do no do this kudos to you! ). After I finished the movie I started to wonder if as a counselor it is possible to be too passionate?

Image from google.com search

By that I mean supporting and advocating for the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) community is something I feel I should do. I hope to one day work with LGBT in my counseling practice and I hope that I can be a voice of acceptance and hope for them. But I also feel this way about addictions, grief (specifically infant loss), and the overall mental health population that deals with the stigma of mental illness. There are many areas of great interest to me and many areas I feel that I should help. So as a counselor can you be too passionate? When does it become an issue? How do you narrow it down so that you can become the best in something?

Image from google.com search


I think for me I am going to have to do some soul searching. I think part of the beauty of this profession is that we do get to work with individuals from all walks in life. I will have many opportunities to work with LGBT, those who suffer from addiction, grief and many stages of mental illness. The issue I am currently having is deciding where I feel my effort is best focused. All of these are in great need of advocates. All of them. So my journey continues and so does my passion. I am going to allow the passion to lead me where it goes. I am hoping that some of the questions I have will be answered while I am doing my upcoming internships.

Women and body image

I follow many blogs and this one I happen to follow on Facebook as well and today she posted a link to this post that I will link you to below. What this post has to say about women and body image issues is so true and might ring true for many of you.

We are good enough at Sophisticated pair just might make up stop and give pause to your own issues with your body. So read her post and pass it along!

Allie

Overwhelmed

Image from Pinterest.com

Yep me. It takes a lot for me to feel this way as if you ask anyone who knows me they will tell you I am always going and doing. The last 2 weeks I am just overwhelmed. I don't know if it is a combination of things or a single thing but I am overwhelmed and it is starting to interfere with my schooling, my  work as a photographer, and being a mom and wife. My energy is down, my drive is down, and my motivation is gone.

I am asking myself why. What is going on in my life? What have I been neglecting? What am I not admitting? Slowly the why is coming to me. So I have decided it is time once again to set up an appointment with a local therapist. After all I can't really counsel myself can I?

So if you see little activity it is not because I am not longer writing I am just taking a break. Sadly this is the one thing I can skip out on without feeling like a failure. Sorry! I will be back to regular writing soon.

Shortcomings....

 Oh yes you know...those things that we don't like to admit that we have....faults. Most of us go through our days totally unaware of our own faults and how they affect our lives and the people in our lives. I am no exception. I am beginning to think that a large point in going through a Masters in Counseling is to become aware, begin to work on, and change that fact...denial of our shortcomings.

So this is going to be a short post as I am pondering.....what my own faults are? How can I change them? Do I want to change them?

Quotes

I admit it I love quotes. I love how most often such smalls words placed together can really say something to me. So today I am going to post some quotes I have seen most recently that have said something to me. 

Expectation is the root of all heartache - Shakespeare

We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have : but rather comes as the result of recognizing and appreciating what we do - Keonig.

Pinterest

pinterest

I am not telling you it is going to be easy: I am telling you it is going to be worth it--unknown.

And my favorite as of lately that I fully intend to hang on my office as a counselor........

 

All images are from Pinterest.com

Holding my thoughts

As I responded to an assignment in one of my courses I found myself holding my thoughts instead of putting them down as asked. Holding because the nature of my thoughts most likely would have offended someone within my class. This got me thinking.

Do clients withhold thoughts because of the same thing? Do our clients not feel free to speak their minds for fear of judgment by us or those around them even if we have established (or think we have) a atmosphere of acceptance? Here I was sitting within a course full of those who have proclaimed acceptance (although some more than others) and I couldn't open up and be honest for fear of being offensive or taken out of context.

 Is this the experience for clients? If so as counselors/therapists how can we work to change this or at least make our clients aware that we are aware?

Image from google.com

Should we push clients?

In a class of mine the subject came up this week about allowing clients time for their self admission of history and possible issues. This got me thinking. If we allow our clients to dictate the flow of counseling is this helpful or harmful? Now you might be sitting here thinking of course clients should dictate when and how they admit and discuss but stop for a moment and consider. If clients are allowed to go at their own rate without being "pushed" by the counselor would we really get anywhere? By this I mean if clients are never pushed by the counselor or made to feel a slight discomfort will the counseling process really go anywhere? Will clients see goals met? Grow? Change?

I don't advocate the choke and puke method (thanks Don B for that term over summer intensives) where clients are held in a head lock with you sticking your finger down their throat so they "puke up" their deepest darkest inner workings at every session however I do believe clients need to be pushed. They need to pushed beyond their comfort level a little more each session because this discomfort to me is what creates change and is really getting down to business. If clients want someone to continue to allow them to hold back and stay in their comfort zone they don't need a therapist for that, they need a buddy who will sit and listen and say oh man that sucks without requiring any action on their part on how to change it. Sorry but that will not be me as a counselor nor do I want it to be.

I hope to allow my clients to talk but I also hope to give my clients the skills for action. Actions that will change their lives and I am not sure I can accomplish that without pushing. Of course there needs to be a healthy balance and as counselors we have to know when to push and when to back off and allow the process to just flow that goes without saying I believe. But we have to be willing to PUSH when needed and I think that is harder for counselors to learn to do. 

Is there a place and pace for self admission? Of course there is. We must first work to establish the counseling relationship and trust between client/counselor before we begin to push the client to move out of their comfort zone but in my opinion we must push to see real and long lasting change for the client.

Thoughts?

Control In Therapy

As you may or may not remember I am still semi in the process of deciding my theoretical orientation for counseling. I am 99% sure that I am going to be a Gestalt/Reality therapist with a little solution focused, cognitive and existentialism and Adlerian thrown in my mix as needed when clients deem it appropriate.  I have been reading a book called Life Techniques in Gestalt Therapy. I just started it a few days ago and I came to a section about control in therapy that got me thinking about control in the therapeutic relationship and how it works/doesn't work.

If we stop for a moment and consider the very nature of the relationship between a therapist and their client we will see the "control" although I am not sure I like to call it that. A counselor in essence must be in control and the client must be willing to allow the counselor to be. I do not mean control in the typical sense but a client must believe the counselor knows what they are doing and has to believe that the suggestions and advice given will lead towards the clients self professed goals. So by control this is what I mean.

This might come as a shock but I never looked at it this way until I read this chapter. Never. Not once did I consider the counselor having the need to control the counseling relationship and until I read this chapter I most likely would have said the client should be in control. Now I am not so sure about that. So this chapter has me considering how control will play into the counseling relationships I form with my clients...interesting.

Meditation

Do any of you meditate? For my addictions class we have been asked to meditate and keep an online class journal of our experience. So this week I will begin to meditate and keep a journal, but before I did I thought I would spend some time looking over things about meditation. Typically it is associated with Buddhism, but you do not have to be a Buddhist to enjoy meditation or take practice of it you can meditate no matter what your religion is or is not.

I spent some time yesterday evening and this morning looking around for various information about meditation and I found the same information posted over and over so either all these people are copying from the other or all of these people have experienced similar results from meditating with the main one being : just being. Yes you read that right just being. We are all so consumed with our lives and daily happening that we often neglect to just be. I am guilty of this. From what I read meditation is supposed to help you become okay to just be. I personally am hoping to learn some patience.......

So I have decided that I will practice meditation for 10 minutes daily for 4 weeks, 15 minutes daily for 4 weeks, and 20 minutes daily for 4 weeks and see how it goes. Weirdly enough I believe I am going to use my closet floor as my "spot" because it seems to be the most quiet/darkest place in my house and I want it dark. I am going to focus on my breathing as a means of staying in the now.

So if you meditate what benefits have you found? How often do you do it? How do you do it?

I will update as I go along in my journey :)

Fall 2012 Semester Highlights

Even though I would love to be there for the next 15 weeks...I will be here and give you a snapshot of what is to come for me as far as college work is concerned...

 I thought I would post some highlights for my upcoming semester. I will begin posting what is required in my courses again on occasion but remembering to do it weekly seems to be tough for me...

Some highlights of this semester :

I have to attend an open AA class
I have to start and keep a meditation journal
I have to practice doing intakes and treatment plans
I have to design an addiction prevention plan
I have to write an in depth paper dealing with a specific addiction
I have to get involved in some way with a specific cultural group
I have to design an advocacy plan for a specific population/group
I have to become more knowledgeable about policies that affect my profession
I have to complete a wellness project

I am extremely excited about each and every one of those tasks. I am most excited about doing the work required in my addictions course. As I have posted before addictions is the area that I am most drawn to when it comes to work and so I am glad that I can explore more about it throughout this course.